


Being Normal

by dirtylittlegreasemonkey



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-05
Updated: 2015-04-05
Packaged: 2018-03-21 10:12:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3688329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dirtylittlegreasemonkey/pseuds/dirtylittlegreasemonkey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Canon-universe. With Chrissie away, Robert invites Aaron to Home Farm to have a go at being normal. Set immediately after 30 March episode.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Being Normal

Eventually, once the beer had sunk into his skin, he was relaxed enough to take off his coat and stop feeling like Chrissie was going to walk in the door any second. Robert took it from him and hung it in the hallway (they had a coat rack, of course they did) and Aaron was left standing in the kitchen, thumb nail pick-picking at the label and studying the room. If he looked hard enough he could probably see her fingerprints in the shiny counter tops. He thought about the two of them in there, cooking, talking, laughing – and hated himself for the images it conjured. Why was he torturing himself this way? Then Robert strolled back in, with enough ease for two and skimmed his hand on the small of Aaron’s back and upwards until it rested on his shoulder blades and the world outside the pair of them melted.

“Everything okay?” Robert asked for what felt like the hundredth time.

“Yeah.”

“Good.”

He didn’t shift his hand and Aaron didn’t dare move in case it released them both from the position. He glued his hands to the top of the breakfast bar chair, palms ringing with cold from the beer.

“Are you feeling hungry?”

Robert’s voice had a warm, rumbling quality to it like he was cautious, handling Aaron with care. Aaron could feel Victoria’s words coming back to him, feeding into his growing curiosity into the Robert underneath the exterior.

“I could manage a pizza, yeah.”  

He couldn’t help it, Robert’s smile was infectious – as soon as he saw his eyes start creasing, a warmth soaked into him and he felt a smile dragging across his face. Robert slid him a pizza menu that had been on the table the entire time. His heart clunked in a strange excitement that Robert might have been thinking about what he might like.

He took his hand away from Aaron’s spine and stood, hands on hips just watching on as Aaron perused the menu without much interest. The running had put him off food a little and while he craved more from Robert than just heading straight to bed – food wasn’t his first thought. From the corner of his eye he watched Robert tilt his head to the side and snake closer. Robert pulled him forward by the waist and just held him.

“Anything but pineapple,” he said, voice low and playful.

“Fruit on a pizza? No chance.” Aaron shook his head. “What do you want?”

Robert’s mouth curved off to the side, squeezing at Aaron’s middle. “Apart from the obvious?”

Aaron raised his eyebrows and Robert backed off.

“Sorry,” he said, hesitantly.

“What you sorry for?” Aaron said, taking a challenging step forward. He couldn’t match Robert’s height, but he raised himself up on his feet a little higher and pressed his mouth against Robert’s just for a moment, just long enough to taste the bitterness of lager smarting on his lips. Robert’s hands grazed against his chest, fingertips pressing into his hoodie with a loose enough grip to let Aaron know that he was holding back on taking control.

Aaron's mouth brushed once more against the cut on Robert's lip. It wasn't an apology for what he’d done, but an acknowledgment of everything that had passed, everything they had recovered from. He filed it under things he wanted to forget, but things he didn't regret. Part of him wished forgetting was as simple as it sounded. He wanted them to be carefree and careless, ripping into each other's clothes and taking selfish mouthfuls of each other wherever and whenever they pleased but there was a film over everything now - a gauze of guilt and tragedy. Robert made life both unbearable and bearable in one addictive mess he didn't know how to, or if he wanted to, escape from.

Robert’s hands weaved around his waist again, holding their bodies together in the middle. "You know, I'm going to have to thank Vic if her bigging me up gets this kind of reaction," Robert said, his murmured words fading as he framed Aaron's top lip with his.

"It was the offer of a pizza, actually." Aaron laid his palms on Robert's chest, smiling as he pulled out of the kiss. "Make mine a double pepperoni."

*

“I’m telling you – the worst experience of my life!” Robert said, finishing his holiday-from-hell anecdote and throwing the final pizza crust into the empty box. Aaron had mocked him the whole way through the tale – quipping with posh-boy remarks and eye rolling in all the right places – but secretly enjoying the one-on-one attention as Robert flicked through stories of his past. They hadn’t moved from the kitchen, sitting at the breakfast bar with chairs turned out to face each other and knees touching every time they moved. Empty beer bottles lined up between them and left over pizza growing cold and greasy.

“You think that’s bad. ‘ _Oh kids pissed in my private pool’_ – give me a break!” Aaron said, getting up from the stool and finding himself at home enough to help himself to another beer from the fridge. Robert span around to watch him, elbows back and a bemused slant to his smile. His eyes were tracking Aaron lazily and Aaron was more than aware of it – loose enough from the beer to like it. He nodded at Robert, offering him another drink and re-joined him – this time just propped up beside him. “I stayed in this hostel in Rouen – mould on the mattress,” – Robert grimaced at Aaron’s story – “Stains from god knows what. I spent all night awake, trying not to heave. But that isn’t even the worst of it. I wasn’t living on much so I had dinner there – it was cheap. _Langue de boeuf_.”

“Beef?”

“Cow’s tongue.”

Robert laughed, warm and throaty. “Nice.”

“After that I didn’t try anything without an English menu.”

“You must be able to speak a bit though – French.”

“A bit,” Aaron said, with a little shrug, his fingers shredding the beer bottle label.

Robert pinned him with his gaze, folding his arms across his chest. “Go on.”

“What?”

“Say something.”

Aaron scoffed. “No.”

“Go on!”

He knew he shouldn’t have looked at Robert, his eyes had that melting quality, drawing him in, turning his insides molten. His pink, expectant smile that flipped between this smug and charming tosser to an excitable child. It messed with his head – drove him crazy.

“ _Tu me rends fou._ ”

He said it, then opened his hands as if to say – _now will you shut up?_ But instead Robert stood and pressed him against the countertop, hands either side of him. He was dizzy.

“Translation?”

You drive me crazy.

“It means you’re an idiot.”

“It sounded sexier in French.”

“Funny that.”   

Robert dropped his head to one size, his interest moving to Aaron’s lips. “I only know the basics,” he said, “ _Bonjour…au revoir…”_

“ _Voulez vous coucher-”_

He grinned, all white teeth and charm. “That too.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet,” Aaron said. Then he was pulling Robert down, locking his fingers into his jumper and kissing his mouth with all the need these months of loneliness and grief had produced. He shivered as Robert’s moan thrust inside him and he replied with his body, racing to combine their heat. He peeled off Robert’s jumper and ran his hands along his back, surprised by how cool and smooth it felt, and let Robert take control of the kiss, desire throbbing through him. He unbuttoned the fly on his own jeans and broke from the kiss in a breathless murmur as Robert’s tongue moved to the sensitive warmth of his neck. All his defences were breaking.

His hands moved to Robert’s ass, dragging him in, feeling heat flood his face. Robert rubbed the flat of his palm between them, plying Aaron with desperate pawing at the front of his jeans and the unmistakeable solidness there. Then it was as if something clicked in his head and he slowed, holding Aaron’s face near his and pressing his lips into the stubble on his cheek.

“You’ve no idea how much I’ve missed this,” Robert said, his lips fluttering against Aaron’s face. “But we don’t have to…we can just…”

Aaron didn’t trust Robert’s willingness to hold back, not fully, not when he could feel how much they both wanted it – he knew Robert had even less power to resist than he had. He wasn’t sure it even mattered to him, Robert wanting him in any shape or form had become enough.

“No. I want to.”

Robert’s kisses flowed from his face, to his neck, to the layers of clothes on his chest until he sunk to his knees on the kitchen floor and tugged down Aaron’s jeans and underwear without a second’s pause. Aaron wanted to say – _not here_ – as if being in a family room made their betrayal worse, but his focus fell to the golden crown of Robert’s head, the fist scuffs on his face and the fearless expression he wore. He loved him.

Leaning back against the table, one hand gripped on the chair and the other hovering, shaking, near Robert’s head, nested loosely on Robert’s shoulder, Aaron shut his eyes just for a minute. He exhaled, trembling, as Robert’s wet kisses pored over his thighs. Aaron didn’t want to breathe, didn’t want to move or make a sound in case one wrong step interrupted Robert, but it didn’t seem to matter, he was fixated – his breath hot from his nose and stirring Aaron’s cock. Robert ran his tongue along the underside of Aaron’s cock and then leant back on his heels and looked up at Aaron with a grin that just glowed out of him. Robert made him feel like no one else.

Aaron tried to save face, tried not to let the smirk fall out of him but he matched Robert’s smile, shaking his head and clenching his grip on Robert’s shoulder.

“Stop pratting around, will ya?”

Robert traced the head of Aaron’s cock with his tongue, torturing him in slow winding motions until he gave up on the teasing and steered his mouth until the heat of it had wrapped around Aaron completely. Aaron gnawed at his own knuckles – the ones that weren’t grazed from the beating – and tried reigning in the sounds that were scratching their way out of him. Robert was never silent, even as he was now, sucking as if on a relentless mission, the groans passed through his nose and pulsed into Aaron’s head.

In lapses, Robert withdrew, jerking Aaron off for a minute and returning, eager and slack mouthed, his lips red raw with saliva. The intensity rushed over Aaron in stormy waves, drowning him in the unbearable pleasure of it all. When he was close he found himself gasping, pleading with Robert.

“Shit…Rob..fuck. Uh god.”

And all Robert could do was smile, that fucking smile, and release him and drag him back in, with hands on his thighs and a knowing, twisting tongue. Aaron was his, totally under his spell. He came – the ferocity of it singeing at his every nerve ending and leaving him bare in his breathlessness. 

*

Watching Robert load up the DVD player was like watching a child at Christmas – big, clumsy fingers and transfixed in his own joy. He introduced his DVD collection, shut away behind cupboard doors, like carrying a baby round at a Christening, waiting for Aaron to coo and enthuse over titles he’d never heard of and had no desire to watch. Aaron couldn’t remember the last time he’d watched a DVD and the few he owned were stashed under the bed in all the wrong cases and grubby with fingerprints. Robert’s were pristine and embarrassingly well organised.

“Impressed?” Robert asked, arm slumped across Aaron’s shoulders as they stood facing the shelves.

“Yeah. I mean, I know you’re good at hiding things but I didn’t realise you were quite this sad.”

“And you’ve never collected anything? Apart from ASBOs, obviously.”

“Funny.”

It was different when they were like this – playing, Robert’s hand slipping down to his waist as if it was the easiest thing in the world. Robert beamed at him – nothing malicious or smug about it – and just like that Aaron didn’t need reminding why he was there.

“Pick us something,” - Robert said, stealing a brief kiss – “and I’ll go get us another drink.”

When Robert returned from the kitchen, two beers in his hands, he scoffed at Aaron’s choice of DVD.

“ _Speed_. Really? You do know that’s one of Lawrence’s? I think he’s got a thing for Keanu Reeves.” Robert took the case from him and turned it over in his hands. “I’m more of a Sandra Bullock fan myself.”

“Course you are,” Aaron muttered, flopping down onto the sofa. “You pick then.”

Robert read out a list of titles until he paused. “Tell me you’ve seen Game of Thrones.”

“Dragons and wizards?” Aaron shrugged. He had a vague notion of it and some peripheral memory of it coming up in conversation with Robert when he used the name Jon Snow to check into Barden Park, but the whole hype surrounding it had passed him by like other things people raved over.

“You’re serious? You’ve never seen it?!”

“I’d be too embarrassed to admit to it if I had. It’s for geeks.”

After a moment of standing there with hands on his hips and a mouth dropped in shock, Robert was prising open the boxet and loading up the DVD player. He kept muttering things about books and it being one of the greatest adaptations of a series but Aaron had zoned out, watching in amusement as Robert bent over to operate the machine. Once he’d set it all up he spread out on the sofa and looked over towards Aaron.

“What are you doing sitting all the way over there? You gone off me or something?”

Aaron sloped over and sat beside him which seemed to provoke a strong reaction from Robert, whose enthusiasm surfaced in his manic grin and he pulled Aaron in for a kiss by the front of his t-shirt.

The DVD wasn’t really for him, but Aaron kept up the pretence of interest if only to keep Robert happy. Is this what he’d become now? Keeping his mouth shut and faking intrigue to protect the feelings of someone else? He guessed he was that sort of person. And it seemed worth it, to have Robert’s arm slung round the back of the sofa, occasionally tapping him when he needed to explain a mind-numbing connection between endless characters, to see him so excited. Aaron felt sluggish and tired from the beer and food and orgasm and his eyelids pressed down on his vision, but then as moments on screen drifted onto something dark and quiet, Robert would look at him in a sideways glance and squeeze his thigh and he found himself alert in a different way.    

When the credits rolled and the room had fallen dark, Robert ran his hand up Aaron’s chest and leaned into him. Robert smelt good – like warm, spiced honey - and Aaron pushed his weight up, sinking his mouth onto Robert’s. He pressed everything into that kiss – his longing, his affection, his pleasure in being treated as something so much more than just a fuck – it all danced across his tongue in wet, velvety strokes.

“You got a bed in this place?” he said, slightly breathless and serious against the delight that fired up in Robert’s eyes.

*

A part of him calculated how many bedrooms Home Farm must hold and he was sure there were other options than Robert leading him to the bed he shared with his wife, but Aaron didn’t back out. He never said no, didn’t say he didn’t want to, that they shouldn’t. He wanted to, he wanted to lie with him, be with him. Maybe some dark part of him didn’t care about her at all. Worse – maybe part of him resented her – but it was something he’d never be cruel enough to acknowledge.

He crossed the threshold of things he shouldn’t be doing and let Robert kiss his neck as they laid down, listening and obeying his assurance that this was okay, this felt good, this felt right. Because it did, didn’t it? Maybe not morally, but physically he had no ability to deny it. Robert was the fire, burning down the house, which he couldn’t put out.

It wasn’t rushed or frantic. There was no threat of anyone walking in or interrupting. No drafts from a quick outside fumble. They were in the plush comfort of a king sized bed, too many pillows and bedside lamps that threw an amber cast over the flexing muscles of Robert’s shoulders. It had been so long since the last time they’d had sex that at each touch Aaron had been reminded how much he’d missed it. He caught sight of Robert’s wedding ring as he pinned Aaron’s arm above him, reminding him with an illicit surge of arousal that Robert had gone back on his word that this would never happen again. It was a compulsion they both shared. He skimmed his hands down the bare flank of Robert’s body and pressed his thighs around him. Aaron needed this more than ever, needed Robert more than he could stand.     

*

He would never lower his guard enough to fully commit to the idea of Robert loving him, but laying like he was in the morning light, head rising and falling on Robert's chest with his every breath felt a lot like love. Maybe Robert wasn't conscious of what he was doing but Aaron felt it, Robert's fingers stroking and curling the soft hair at the back of his head. It was more intimate than anything they'd done in the night. More intimate than Robert licking the inside of his thighs and saying stupid arrogant things like _“This feels good, does it?”_ knowing it did; knowing murmuring against Aaron’s ass was enough to send him crazy; knowing that by running the tip of his tongue over his opening and stopping to say _“You’re lucky to have me”_ would have earned him a punch if he wasn’t midway through a spectacularly intense rim-job.

Cuddling up to him – which had happened in a natural, cosy, stretch way rather than consciously -Aaron felt like returning the sentiment of affection then, using those three words that had caused him so much heartache when they were thrown back in his face, his ear pressed against Robert's heartbeat. Instead he ran his thumb back and forth across Robert's stomach, slight enough so that he might not comment on it and braced for the inevitable end of the peace.

It came almost immediately as Robert's phone vibrated on the bedside cabinet. Aaron could feel his eyes rolling and he inhaled, expecting Robert to ease away, but without interrupting their contact, Robert reached for the phone and switched it off.

"Just Andy," Robert said, tossing the phone away.

"Oh," Aaron said, not having the courage to believe it wasn't Chrissie keeping tabs on him.

"Wants to know if I'm going to the pub to see Victoria open her presents." Robert pulled the covers up over their bodies as the sweat had begun to cool.

"Are you?"

He grinned, freckles spinning on his cheeks. "You're seriously asking me that?"

"It's your sister's birthday."

"So? She has one every year - she's not going to miss me if I'm not there." A mischievous grin developed on his face, his fingertips skimming from Aaron's neck, down his spine to the edge of his backside. "Besides...I've got better things to be doing."

"Really?"

“You weren’t planning on going anywhere, were you?”

“Depends if I’ve got any better offers.”

Robert squeezed the flesh of Aaron’s ass and wet his lips, moving his head across the pillow to kiss him.

“Are you going to at least text her?” Aaron said when the kissing had stilled. Robert gave him a pointed look as if he’d been scolded by a parent. “She’s my mate!”

“I bought her a day at some fancy chef school, what more does she want?”

“A text is the least you owe her.” Aaron said, propping up on his elbow on the pillow.

“Meaning what, exactly?”

“Meaning she’s spent the last ten years without you.”

“Yeah and you know why.”

Aaron placed his hand on Robert’s chest, offering him a sign of tenderness. “I know. But she loves having you here. You’re important to her.”

Robert sighed, his face softening when he looked at Aaron. He picked up his phone and turned it back on. He placed his finger to his mouth signalling for Aaron to keep quiet and called Victoria. Aaron submitted to the rush of pride that span through him and wriggled down under the covers, head turned on the pillow to face Robert and listened as he wished her a happy birthday.

When he was done he turned on his side, throwing his hand across Aaron’s hip. “Now that’s done, am I back in the good books?”

“I’ll think about it.”

Robert nuzzled his open mouth against the soft beardy bristles by the corner of his mouth and kissed a path to his ear. “What about if I let you fuck me?”

Aaron stretched, rolling onto his back, his whole body elongating with a groan – half tiredness, half buckling with anticipation. He pulled his arm around Robert’s neck and dragged his fingernails through the back of his blond hair. The suggestion was all he needed for his cock to swell to full size and Robert smirked at his obvious reaction.

“Sounds alright, yeah.”

Robert tossed him a condom from the bedside table and reached a little further for the lube, the outside of the bottle oily from last night’s excessive and clumsily eager use. His hair was all fluffed up and sticking out at all angles as he rose up on his knees, whipping the covers from Aaron’s body and hovering over him. Robert liked control, liked towering over him – and Aaron had no complaints on any front. He eyed up Aaron’s dick with an impossible degree of hunger when he eased on the rubber, his throat pulsing with the faintest of growls.

Aaron could feel his breaths coming in and out roughly like they had jagged edges. His clammy hands found Robert’s thighs and stroked him and that fine hair as Robert slicked himself with lube, struck by a twisted smile of concentration and pleasure.

“You look good like that,” Aaron said, losing grip on reality and his words as Robert rubbed their groins together.

Robert grabbed Aaron’s cock and pumped it cleanly, edging forward on his knees to position himself. “You’re not so bad yourself.”

They seemed to exhale together, eyes closing and opening and brows lowered in thick lines of determination. Aaron held the base of his cock, mouth loose and incoherent, listening to each and every grunt rumbling from Robert’s body as he lowered himself.

“Oh. Fuck!”

Robert laughed then, guttural and gasping as he found a rhythm on top, making Aaron shudder with his strained vocal cries of pleasure. Robert was the opposite of shy. Aaron’s whole body buzzed with heat and his thumbs left stunned white prints in Robert’s solid thighs as he begged him to go slower. It was over too quickly in the end – Robert had no intention to make it linger it seemed. He had tricks and looks and words to make Aaron come hard and fast. His whole body reeled after, skin glistening in sweat as he spread out flat on his back. Robert dealt with himself until Aaron found enough energy to crawl under the sheets and cover him with his mouth.

He collapsed, spent, somewhere on Robert’s body between his navel and chest and whined with a fractured groan. Robert fluttered with a small laugh and ran his fingers through the top of Aaron’s dry, ungeled hair.

“Your hair looks good like this,” he said, swapping exhausted smiles with Aaron. They basked in the breathy quiet, stroking each other’s skin until Robert spoke again. “I’ll go and make us a coffee.”

This was what being normal felt like.

Heaven.


End file.
